


I Have to Use Yours

by StanningJay



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: FitzHunter - Freeform, M/M, Soulmate marks, Soulmates AU, baby’s first soulmate fic, background skimmons, did i do this right, rarepair exchange, relish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:00:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StanningJay/pseuds/StanningJay
Summary: Leo Fitz had assumed that if Jemma Simmons was not his soulmate he simply didn’t have one.Well, you know what happens when you assume.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Lance Hunter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	I Have to Use Yours

**Author's Note:**

> Okayyy so this was written for the Agents of SHIELD final mission rarepair exchange. I have never read nor written a soulmate fic so uhhhh... Bon Appetit?
> 
> This is for For-The-Love-Of-Wolves 
> 
> I hope you like it 😅

When they’d met at the academy, it hadn’t taken long for Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons to form a bond so close they at times seemed psychically linked. 

In fact, Leo had sort of just assumed that Jemma was his soulmate, and for the first three months of their friendship he’d scrutinized his naked body in the mirror every morning searching for the proof that it was so. It didn’t appear, however, and over time he gave up on the idea. Not everyone had a soulmate, and he honestly couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather spend his life with than Jemma Simmons. So, he was alright with it, really. 

They bumped along comfortably, effortlessly, and though Leo vaguely wondered when their relationship would cross from friendship into romance he didn’t pursue it. They never discussed it, but it was always there, hovering in every lingering touch, every easy laugh, every lazy Sunday nap after being up all night in the lab. He always assumed it would happen when it happened.

You can’t rush these things. 

Of course Jemma would have to ruin everything. No, that wasn’t entirely fair of him. But still. He and Jemma had gone on holiday after passing their final exams and field assessments, finally ready to become proper SHIELD agents. They had a week of free time before they were to be setting off with on the bus with Agent Coulson, so they’d decided to rent a beach house and relax before (in Leo’s words) running off with the flying circus. 

“Can you get my back?” Jemma asked, sweeping her hair to the side. Her pale skin would burn in an instant, Leopold knew, so he slathered up his hands with SPF 80 as Jemma pulled off her beach cover-up. 

Leo was about to rub the sunscreen into her shoulders when he saw it. 

“Jemma—What?”

“Hmm?” She said distractedly, digging in her bag for her beach book. 

“What the hell—?”

There, in dainty angled script on Jemma’s shoulder, plain as the sun threatening above, were the words, “Bad Girl Shenanigans.” 

For several moments, Leo felt he couldn’t breathe. 

“What is it, Fitz? You’re scaring me.”

He rubbed the words angrily with the side of his hand as if they might wipe away. 

“What on earth?” 

Wordlessly, Leo took out his phone and snapped a photo. He passed it to Jemma. She touched the picture on the screen with trembling hands, eyes wide.

“Jemma, who—?”

But she was already moving; she shoved Leo’s phone into his chest and ran inside, presumably to peer at the marks on her flesh in the mirror. 

They never spoke of it. Leo could almost pretend he hadn’t seen the words, until he and Jemma boarded the bus with Agents Coulson, Ward and May. 

That was when they’d met Skye. 

It had been instantaneous, the way all the books and subreddits had said it would be. The catch of Jemma’s breath, the pretty blush high on her cheeks, her thick brows zooming up toward her hairline. Leo had smiled to himself, then. Jemma was a goner. 

Nothing changed really, and for that he was grateful. The jealousy he felt was dull, a hollow sort of ache that he could almost ignore as he watched Jemma and Skye dance around each other for months before finally giving in, the pull between them undeniable, palpable. Skye was good for Jemma, and vice versa. 

He was happy, for the most part. He still had Jemma, and he came to love Skye too—love all of them. They were a family. 

Then, Ward had pulled the rug out from under them, betrayed them. Tried his damndest to have himself and Jemma killed. 

The more he tried to pin point it, to nail down what made him wake up screaming, what made him lose the air from his chest, the more certain he was that above all else that betrayal was what had shaken him. His muddled brain, his useless hands—all of that he could have accepted if he could only have known, really known, that he had someone. Something had snapped between himself and Jemma. Jemma had Skye, and Skye had Jemma. They could trust one another on some sort of unknowable molecular level. But after Ward...Leo didn’t think he could trust anyone like that again. Not the way he’d trusted Jemma, Before. Or Skye. Or any of them. 

Then, Jemma had been sent undercover at Hydra and it felt like someone had scooped out Leo’s heart, worse than drowning. He withdrew. He hid in the machine bay with Mack, avoiding Skye because he hated the look of his own anguish reflected on her face—and of course that made him feel guilty; she needed him, too, but Leo just didn’t have it in him to be there for someone. 

He withdrew further, stopped sleeping. Leo felt like a ghost. He barely left his bunk; he reflected that since was next to useless anyway so no one would miss him. The new faces around the Playground made him feel ill so he hid, and then he felt nothing. 

He hadn’t noticed it appear, hadn’t noticed until one day he’d finally convinced himself to shower and try to shave. His hands shook so badly he was afraid of slitting his own throat with his razor, so he soon gave that up. He sighed, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror. Looking down to where his trembling hands gripped the white porcelain of the sink, he saw it. 

“I have to use yours,” there in plain English in friendly, blocky print, on the inside of his wrist. He rubbed at it, like he’d done with Jemma’s mark so many months ago, as if it would go away. 

“No, no—no,” he muttered. The thought of letting another person into his life made him think that accidental death by shaving may not have been the worst thing. “Bloody—“ 

He scrubbed and scrubbed until the skin of his wrist was chafed red and angry and raw but the words were still there. _I have to use yours._

He didn’t have to do anything about it, he reasoned as he ran back to his bunk, shower forgotten. He’d just wear long sleeves and refuse to meet anyone new. He was already sort of doing that anyway.

He clutched his arm to his chest like someone might be trying to steal it from his shoulder socket and scurried down the hall back toward his bunk in his towel. 

That’s when he heard it, echoing through the halls—a voice like coming home. 

Bloody hell.

He gripped the towel tighter to his waist and broke into a dead sprint. Leo slammed the door to his bunk shut behind him, leaning against it and breathing hard. 

His brain was light years behind his body—which was, let’s say, stirring at the sound of that voice. With a grunt, Leo broke out in a cold sweat and pressed his hand aggressively against himself, trying to let his worthless mind catch up to his traitorous body. He found himself suddenly hot all over.

Who was that? The warm English accent—perhaps Leo had a type. He tried to place the voice to one of the frightening new faces he’d done his best to ignore over the past few months and couldn’t. Leo covered his own face with his hands, trying to get his brain back in control. Clothes. Yes, he needed clothes. Long sleeves. He dressed in a hurry, drawing a cozy cardigan tight around himself. Jemma had given it to him for Christmas last year, or perhaps the year before. He perched on the edge of his bed, hugging himself. When he got his breathing under control, he pulled his sleeve up to read the words again, half of him hoping they’d vanished. He’d heard that could happen, but no such luck—there they were. _I have to use yours._

Use your what, exactly? He nearly tore the sleeve from the shoulder of his sweater in his haste to cover the words again.

Then, there was that voice. It took Leo several tense moments before the words the voice had spoken could actually penetrate Leo’s foggy mind. He frowned. Unless he was very much mistaken the voice had said, “something something demonic hellbeast.” 

Leopold shivered, wondering how suddenly that phrase seemed to be the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. He was obviously losing it—he had never said or even thought the word “sexy” in his entire life. Bloody hell.

He was determined to stay in his bunk possibly until he died of old age, but obviously his body was conspiring against him. After weeks of barely desiring or tasting his food, his stomach would not stop growling. He was starving. Reluctantly, Leo poked his head out of his bunk. The corridor was empty. 

As stealthy as he could manage, Leopold moseyed to the kitchen, hoping to find something like a sandwich he could grab and run back to his bunk. Was this how Jemma had felt? Like her skin was on fire and her brain was jelly? He hadn’t even seen who—that brought him up short. The voice speaking those magic words had been male, beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

Leo frowned. Huh. That was new. 

Face hot, he pulled open the fridge, stooping to see what the shelves contained. 

“Pass me a beer, mate?”

Leo almost fell over. He stood up, sucking his lower lip between his teeth. “Erm.”

The man in front of him was one of the new agents they’d acquired from the wreckage of SHIELD. Leo had seen his face, seen him around, but he’d never looked. Soft Brown eyes, a fine straight nose, close cropped beard, things Leo didn’t even know how to compliment but certainly had him feeling some type of way. He’d never really looked at a man, like that—he didn’t even know how to—but he sure as hell was looking now.

It was him.

Leo was staring, he knew it, but this guy was staring back at him, a little confused, a little dazed like maybe he felt something, too. 

“Are you alright?”

“Erm,” said Leo yet again. “I was just—I’ll just—“ he scrabbled blindly into the refrigerator shelf and grabbed the first thing he could. He clutched it to his chest and bolted, leaving the fridge swinging wide and the guy behind him looking utterly bewildered. 

When he reached the sanctuary of his bunk he finally looked at what he had in his hand. It was half empty a jar of relish. 

“Shite.”

His stomach rumbled.

***

Leo did his best to avoid Hellbeast Man, as he’d taken to calling him, over the next few weeks. Hellbeast Man was in the field, mostly, so it wasn’t too challenging, but he had a disconcerting habit of turning up wherever Leo was. The excuses for his fleeing whatever room Hellbeast Man had just entered ranged from nonsensical to nonexistent, but for a while his strategy of careful avoidance worked brilliantly, all the while the phrase burned into Leo’s wrist seemed to itch at him, pulsing from his arm directly up to his brain.

Then, Miami. Leo hovered behind by the holo table. Most of the team was in the field on coms, leaving him alone on the Zephyr with Trip. That would be enough to have him shaking in his proverbial boots—no matter how comfortable the rest of the team seemed to be with him, he’d always be tangled in Leo’s mind with John Garrett and Ward—let alone the fact that he’d put the coms on speaker to listen to Hunter, which Leo had finally learned was Hellbeast Man’s real name, seducing someone with that sultry voice of his. 

He was cooing in the ear of their contact while he and Trip listened from afar. Hunter was using his honeyed tongue to get his hands on a flash drive that Skye could use to get them access to a party. 

The poor woman, Leo thought, listening. If Hunter was whispering in his ear like that, Leo was certain he’d have given him anything he asked for, consequences be damned. He frowned, leaning over the table to listen to Hunter ply this woman with compliments. Though he privately felt that he could happily listen to Hunter croon the word “captivating” over and over until he dropped dead, it only confirmed in his mind that he was right to avoid the man. A stupid tattoo on his wrist didn’t mean anything, really. It didn’t mean love. It didn’t mean trust. He gripped his forearm, squeezing tight. 

He certainly couldn’t trust a man who could speak words like that to someone he barely knew, someone he was trying to trick. 

Later, after the party, May and Coulson left the zephyr to rendezvous with General Talbot. The rest of them—that is Leo, Skye, Trip, Mack, and of course Hunter—stayed behind. 

Leo hovered on the periphery, wishing Jemma was there. He met Skye’s gaze and she gave him a soft, encouraging sort of smile, a jerk of her chin encouraging him to join the others but he shook his head, leaning against the door frame. He was close enough for now, able to listen to the rest of them teasing Hunter as he waxed poetic about his ex wife (the Hellbeast, Leo would learn). 

Hunter saying his ex resembled a goddess filled Leo with a jealousy so acute it stole his breath. How could he marry someone else, touch someone else, be with someone else when the words on his skin that marked him as Leo’s were humming just below his dermis? He’d never felt this type of envy before, rendering him confused and furious, shaking as he relied on the doorframe for support.

He knew that wasn’t fair. He’d dated, too, tepid affairs that were more like tired old rituals, the sex more like hydrating or morning calisthenics than anything he actually really wanted. He wanted it now. The thought was bloody terrifying. He couldn’t even do up the buttons on his cardigan—how on earth could he navigate...

He tried to steady himself, to breathe, but his heart felt as though it were about to burst. The envy thrumming in his blood burned him up and he surprised himself when a tiny little growl slipped out of his mouth. Hunter looked up at him, brown eyes wide, lips parted and Leo wanted to stuff his tongue between those lips, choke off Hunter’s breath and his cocksure words, shut him up and kiss him stupid—

Sparks flew. Not between Leo and Hunter, but literally, filling the air around the holo table with a crackling heat as all the lights flickered. 

“What was—“

BANG. Something went in another part of the plane, and Mack seized his tablet, rattling off how many systems had already begun to fail. As the others scrambled to check panels, Leo found himself strangely calm. He walked to a bank of servers in the other side of the room, ignoring the alarms sounding all around him. 

“Here,” he said, pointing. “Like a small— a small illness.”

“A virus?” Skye was there at his side.

“Y-yeah. Next we’ll lose the—“

“The wings?”

“Yes.”

“That’s where the fuel is.”

Leo’s heart warmed in spite of everything—all of them working to finish his sentences, and for a second he let himself pretend he was in the lab with Jemma and they were equals sharing ideas—not watching his friends trying desperately to fill in the pathetic gaps in his statements. 

The group scattered like shrapnel trying to stall the damage or reverse it, and Leo found himself by default shut up in a tiny space with Hunter. Steam and smoke and sparks flew as they dove into the bay. Leo stared at the machinery he’d known so well—that he’d helped design—and shook his hands in an impotent sort fury.

“I thought you said you could do this!” Hunter, plainly terrified, had no emotional bandwidth to be gentle.

“I can—it’s just—“ he could have screamed. Bad enough he couldn’t do his work, but he couldn’t even explain himself. He bit his tongue and tried again as alarms blared around them. “It’s not just the words! It’s the hands—controlling them—“ he shook the worthless things in front of Hunter’s face. Bloody hell, he looked so sweet when he was confused—focus, dammit! “I can’t use these I have to—“

Hunter frowned, bouncing on the balls of his feet to match Leo’s manic energy, waiting for him to continue. 

Leo’s mouth ran dry and for once he was still. So still it seemed his lungs had stopped expanding, his heart stopped beating. “I have to use yours.”

“Well, why does it have to be me?” The look on Hunter’s face was a fearful one, a pleading one. Leo had to wonder if he knew he were truly asking two things. But they had no time for that, now.

He explained, stammering, how the others were off doing individual repairs. Blushing furiously, he said, “and you’re the only one without, erm...”

“Any technical skills whatsoever?”

“Yes.”

“Super, just, tell me what to do.”

***

They’d worked well together, Leo had to admit, all things considered. Hunter’s hands were sure and strong, his fingers nimble and dexterous—once he was aimed in the proper direction of course. As he’d moved the final wire and flinched with his entire body, Leo had smiled, actually smiled, and rebellious to the last his own hand found its way to Hunter’s shoulder, tight with muscle and rigid with tension. When Hunter had laughed and offered a relieved high five, Leo imagined he could feel the tingling sting for hours after the fact. 

Leo had spent the rest of the night relaxing (not hiding) in his bunk. 

The following afternoon when they’d gotten back to base, the dust having settled a bit, he returned, timid, to the lab.

Mack sat at a small table, reclining back in his chair with a magazine. Leo began checking the parts on the bench that had been pulled from the bus to be replaced or repaired. He heard footsteps approaching down the corridor and looked up to see Hunter coming in, six pack in hand.

“Need some help with that?” Mack asked Leo, as Hunter waited in the doorway.

“No,” Leo snapped without looking. Instant guilt. “Thank you,” he added, glancing up. His face grew hot as he said, “I need to learn to do these things by myself.” 

Hunter’s eyes, so bloody brown and sweet, met his own and an odd look of hurt passed over his face. With alarming speed however, he’d shaken himself and hitched a smile on his face, and Leo noted—not for the first time—the little dimples beside that smile. “Drop everything!” He declared, brandishing his six pack.

“Nah, can’t drop this. Costs a fortune.”

Hunter raised his brows, grin finally reaching his eyes. “Just put it down, mate.”

Hunter practically forced a beer into his hands before passing one to Mack and cracking open one of his own. Leo was tempted to bolt, but something kept his feet rooted to the spot. 

“Something” had color high in his cheeks, more with each beer, and a wicked gleam in his brown eyes. 

Leo nursed his first beer, and his second. The third went down a bit quicker, and the fourth quicker still. Hunter’s six pack was quickly killed and replaced with more from the fridge. The rest of the team drifted in and out, celebrating the successful mission. Coulson regaled them all with the wild tale of May fighting her doppelgänger. 

Near one in the morning, Mack finally gave in to his persistent yawns and ambled off to bed, bidding the others goodnight. Leo looked around, fuzzy and happy, before realizing that he and Hunter were alone in the room. 

He snapped his mouth shut and began shredding the label on his bottle with the nail of his thumb. He hadn’t exactly been talking anyone’s ear off earlier, but he found himself now struck positively mute. Leo couldn’t look at Hunter. He couldn’t. 

“So,” Hunter said.

Leo swallowed, staring at his empty bottle. The silence in the wake of Hunter’s minuscule syllable was like to choke him. How could someone say “so,” and make it sound...pornographic? The quiet stretched on, and Leo wondered if he stayed still and silent perhaps Hunter would forget he was there.

No such luck.

“Can I see it?”

The bottle slipped from Leo’s hand to thud on the carpet. He was certain he’d misheard. “P-pardon?” Leo looked up nervously and saw that Hunter had moved closer, too close. 

“C’mon,” he said. His smile was absolutely wicked. “I wanna see it.”

Leo gripped his forearm, clutching it to his stomach, hiding it. He frowned. “How do you know?”

Hunter stepped even closer. Too bloody close. “Skye told me.”

Leo sighed, cursing her. Keeping a secret from Skye was impossible, expecting her to keep one downright foolish. “What did she say?”

Hunter scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. His eyes fell to his feet. 

Leo frowned. “What?”

“She told me to talk to Simmons.”

If he’d had a hundred guesses he didn’t think that one would have made the list. “What the hell?”

Leo turned away and began pacing. He had about a million questions but he couldn’t seem to convince any of them to come out. 

“She’s undercover!” He blurted finally, settling on a fact as the safest thing to say. 

“That she is.” Hunter stepped close again, smiling that damned smile. “I found her.”

“How?” 

He shrugged, scuffing his toe on the floor. “I have my ways.”

Leo shivered. Hunter made anything sound absolutely filthy. He dared to take a step closer and Hunter let out a huff of a laugh; Leo supposed it wasn’t truly a step as an infinitesimal shuffling of his trainers on the floor. 

“Wha-what,” Leo made a fist and pressed it to his forehead in frustration. 

“What did Simmons say?”

He nodded.

Hunter crossed his arms over his chest. “Quite a bit, actually. But, she said I absolutely should wait for you to come to me.” 

Leo frowned, confused.

Hunter laughed, the prettiest sound. Leo frowned—pretty was perhaps not the right word but it was the most truthful one that came to mind. “I couldn’t wait any longer. Never was much good at following orders.”

Leo blushed.

So,” Hunter said, voice soft and warm. “May I?”

“What?”

Hunter raised his brows, and Leo felt his face flush hot. 

“Oh.” Reluctantly, Leo rolled up the sleeve of his cardigan to expose the words on his wrist. 

Hunter smiled for see them, a tiny smile Leo had never seen before. He watched in wide eyed apprehension as Hunter extended both hands, reaching for his arm. Hunter pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bones on Leo’s wrist, gently pulling his arm closer, toward himself. He brushed the fingertips of his other hand over the thin, soft skin of his upturned wrist, reverent, like Leo’s arm was a priceless relic that could turn to dust if handled roughly. 

God, part of him wanted to be handled roughly, ached for it. A big part of him. He realized he was holding his breath so he let it hiss out between his teeth. Leo’s lips parted as Hunter touched the words again and again, before lifting Leo’s hand so he could press his lips directly over his pulse point, staring him down as he did so like Leo was something to be devoured. 

“Erm,” Leo said, and he tried his best to make it a question. He made himself look at Hunter, really look, and not look away, but he couldn’t stop himself from biting his bottom lip in apprehension. 

With small smile that seemed almost shy, Hunter leaned in toward Leo’s ear and whispered a barely audible, “Yes.”

Hunter led Leo, stumbling, by the arm back to his bunk. Bloody hell, how drunk was he? His head was spinning, though he felt there could be any number of reasons for that: the beer, his injuries, the press of Hunter’s hand in his. 

To avoid passing out, he sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Hunter moved around the tight space, graceful even as he did simple things like close the door and put his phone on the bureau. What was happening seemed enormous in the tiny room. Leo found himself wondering again if this was how Jemma had felt, the first night she’d spent with Skye.

Leo could tell Hunter was trying very hard not to speak; one thing he’d learned was that Hunter could not abide silence. It seemed as though upon entering the bunk, Hunter had become shy whereas Leo was struck suddenly with a prevailing sense of calm. This was fast, and frightening and new—but it had settled in his bones like an ancient thing long sleeping.

He was sick unto death of talking, of trying to talk and failing. Leo patted the mattress beside him, hoping Hunter would sit.

He did. They sat side by side silence, and Leo could feel the tension vibrating off of Hunter’s body. The quiet seemed endless, and Leo found he was happy to ride it out.

Hunter plainly felt otherwise.

“Oh, fuck this.” He seized Leo by his cardigan and yanked, turning his body to press their lips together. 

It was grappling, frantic, right. Everything. Leo was happy to allow Hunter to divest him of the cardigan, to pull him close, to choke off his breath with the seal of his lips. In the span of a few fevered gasps Hunter was straddling his lap, grinding eagerly against him, making needy little noises against his mouth. The noises would have done him in, let alone the rest. Leo backed off a bit, leaning back to take a deep shuddering breath. He moved his hands to the top button of Hunter’s shirt. His hands shook though he tried to steady them with sheer force of will. The adrenaline, his own desire—it wasn’t going to happen. His fingers couldn’t grasp the tiny buttons, and to his horror he felt his throat begin to burn. 

“Hey,” Hunter said, his voice a warm rumble. He seized Leo’s trembling hands to still them, pulling them to his lips. He kissed the tip of each worthless finger, each knuckle on both his useless hands. Leo’s cheeks burned with shame as Hunter directed him to rest his hands in his lap. With a soft kiss, he stood.

“Use mine.”

Leo’s head jerked up so fast he cricked his neck. “Wh-what?”

Hunter’s fingers went to his own buttons. “Use my hands.”

“Like—“

“Earlier, yes.” He grinned. “But hopefully with somewhat less threat of death.”

Leo waited for him to move, but he remained frozen with his hands poised at his shirt collar. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

Leo twisted his fingers over each other. No one had ever called him bold, even Before. This was too much. He cleared his throat, feeling a little faint. Warm hands cradled his face, turning his head upward. 

“You can do this,” Hunter said. “Just tell me what to do, like before.”

Hunter released him and stepped back, waiting. Guileless, open. Willing. The pupils of his eyes were blown wide and black. 

Leo swallowed, taking a deep steadying breath. “Un-undo your buttons,” he said. “Please.”

“Very polite.” Hunter’s fleet fingers made quick work of the buttons on his own shirt, and when he finished he allowed his hands to fall limp to his sides. His fingers twitched, and in that tiny movement Leo understood that this was very foreign to Lance Hunter—being pliant, obedient, passive. His earlier words filled Leo’s head. “Never been much good at following orders.” A smile split Leo’s face as he understood.

It was a gesture, an unbelievably hot gesture. Good lord. “Your button down,” he managed. Leo tried to eek out the shortest possible phrases to lessen the chances of mucking them up.

To his credit, Hunter did not seem interested in torturing full sentences out of him and he shrugged out of his dress shirt to reveal a tight white v neck, clinging to the muscles of his chest. 

“The—the t shirt,” Leo said immediately. “Get rid of it.”

“Less polite,” Hunter scolded, grinning. He tucked his fingers under the bottom hem of his tee and pulled it up and away, tossing it to the side.

“Bloody—“ the rest of Leo’s curse died on his tongue with a sad little choking noise, and Hunter laughed. 

Leo allowed a beat to stare. Several beats. A good long while. Eventually Hunter cleared his throat. 

“Bed,” Leo told him. 

“Pardon?”

Leo scrambled to make room and gestured frantically to the mattress beside him. Hunter sat, close enough for Leo to see the goose flesh raise across his chest. Leo nudged him, a shaking hand pressed to heart, encouraging him to lay back against the pillows. 

Leo allowed himself to look, to touch Hunter’s skin with his shaky fingers, before drawing back. He gulped. “Your jeans.”

“You sure, love?”

Leo smiled and nodded sheepishly. He watched, hungry, as Hunter undid his belt and shimmied the jeans past those narrow, sinful hips of his, electing to remove his socks and shoes as he well. Leo couldn’t fault him for that. Few things were less appealing than nudity with the unfortunate presence of socks. 

Propped up on his elbows, Hunter settled in to watch Leo short circuit for a moment. He seemed comfortable on display, laid out in only his tight navy boxer briefs, certainly not shy about the obvious tenting in the fabric. Leo stared, and stared and stared and stared. 

“What now?” Hunter’s voice was soft and teasing. He was really going to make Leo say it. Good lord.

Instead of speaking Right away, Leo moved to kneel between Hunter’s thighs, quivering like a leaf. He braced his hands on the toned, firm skin of Hunter’s chest to lean down for a kiss. He needed it, for courage. His tongue seemed to know what it was doing, at any rate, so he let it explore Hunter’s mouth, swiping over his lips and sharp white teeth. When he drew away, Hunter gripped his forearms and gave them a reassuring squeeze. 

“Get naked,” Leo blurted. 

Hunter laughed again, a jerky, nervous sort of laugh, and Leo resisted the urge to hide his face, though he was absolutely mortified, because he’d rather die than miss the sight of Hunter’s thumbs teasing the creases of his own hips before hooking down into his waistband to slide the boxer briefs down his thighs. 

As Hunter’s now exposed cock bounced against his belly, Leo reflected briefly how odd it was to be so enchanted—he’d never have guessed he’d think dicks were so nice to look at. He didn’t even much like looking at his own, truth be told, and yet here he was, staring hungrily at one unable to resist the desire to reach out and touch it. 

He bit back a huff of frustration; he couldn’t close his fingers into a tight enough fist to wrap around it, so he sort of pawed awkwardly at it, pressing against its firm warmth to feel it twitch eagerly against his palm. 

Hunter groaned, gripping the sheets with hands that shook almost as badly as Leo’s own, clearly determined to remain still and await further instruction, but to Leo it seemed he was fighting a losing battle. He allowed himself a little smirk, brushing the knuckles of his hand up and down Hunter’s shaft, barely connecting with his skin. 

“Love,” Hunter whispered.

Leo felt any residual trepidation drain away at the sound and said, cool as you please, “Undress me.”

Hunter sat up, cat quick, his hands flying to the hem of Leo’s shirt. A vicious tangle of needy, clumsy limbs and tongues and teeth and suddenly Leo found himself naked on the bed, laying on his side to face Hunter. Their foreheads pressed together, knees bumping, and their hands clasped each other’s in the space between them. 

No more words were needed, and for that Leo was grateful. Soft kisses, touches, breathy sighs—truly they are all that was necessary. Hunter asked questions with his eyes, hooded with want, and Leo answered with shaky nods and tiny moans. 

Hunter explored Leo’s body with reverent hands, and when they finally joined it they was the finest ache he’d ever known. The taste of the sweat on Hunter’s collarbone, the sharp intake of breath when Leo nipped at his chiseled jaw, the hot scrape of beard burn on Leo’s neck, all of that could have added up to the best fucking night of Leo’s life and even still paled in comparison to being so filled, whole, electrified. 

It was dawn before they’d had their fill of each other. Over tired and delirious, come-drunk and giggling they finally fell to the bed, utterly spent. Hunter seemed ready to doze off, but Leo plucked at the covers, nudging Hunter’s limbs, peeking furtively at his body and squirming about.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Leo blushed, pushing kisses to Hunter’s sweaty chest to avoid answering. 

Hunter seized his chin, forcing Leo to look him in the eye. “Tell me.”

“Yours,” Leo said. “I want to-to see yours.”

“You didn’t even check,” he marveled. “What if I was lying?”

“You weren’t, though, right?”

Hunter scoffed, giving him a playful shove before rolling over to show Leo his shoulder blade.

“'Release the ferrets'?”

“Yup.”

“What the hell—?”

“No idea,” Hunter said, turning back to kiss Leo on the forehead. “I suppose we’ll find out.”


End file.
